CIA: Cyberattack caused multiple-city blackout

A cyberattack has caused a power blackout in multiple cities outside the United States, the CIA has warned.

The SANS Institute, a computer-security training body, reported the CIA's disclosure on Friday. CIA senior analyst Tom Donahue told a SANS Institute conference on Wednesday in New Orleans that the CIA had evidence of successful cyberattacks against critical national infrastructures outside the United States.

"We have information that cyberattacks have been used to disrupt power equipment in several regions outside the U.S.," Donahue said. "In at least one case, the disruption caused a power outage affecting multiple cities."

Donahue added that the CIA does not know who executed the attacks or why but that all of the attacks involved "intrusions through the Internet."

The CIA analyst added that his agency had evidence of blackmail demands following demonstrations of successful intrusions.

"We have information, from multiple regions outside the U.S., of cyberintrusions into utilities, followed by extortion demands," Donahue said. "We suspect, but cannot confirm, that some of these attackers had the benefit of inside knowledge."

The CIA does not normally make this information public. According to Donahue, the CIA actively and thoroughly considered the benefits and risks of making this information public and came down on the side of disclosure, the SANS Institute reported.

Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, warned more than three years ago about demonstrations of denial-of-service attacks to computer systems, followed by demands for cash.

Tom Espiner of ZDNet UK reported from London.

[inachu]

Also from the CIA

Also documented proof that the CIA poisoned drinking well water so as to document mass confusion and such if USA ever came under attack.

[ejevo]

Loosen the tinfoil helmet...

... your cranium isn't getting enough oxygen.

[zmonster]

The CIA also said there were WMD in Iraq

Why should anyone believe them on this matter? The odds of a
hacker being able to shut down a power grid are minimal, and
even if they did succeed it would be a simple matter to bring the
power grid back up. This is hardly a threat, and hardly news.
What is more worrisome is will the Bush Administration use the
'fear' generated by this story to take control of, and disable, the
Internet to 'keep us safe'? We should be far more worried about
that, than a couple of hackers flipping a switch OFF that can be
turned back ON in a matter of seconds.

[wildchild_plasma_gyro]

Here we go

It's been designed well for resilience in plain view but outside of control by me (man that is).
Also it seems like i just had my nights sleep in the wrong town.
Year down with the CIA

[Daimyo-]

No obvious questions?

Why don't these "reporters" ask obvious questions like:

WHY IS CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE PLUGGED INTO THE INTERNET?!?!?!

Obviously the intelligence agencies are putting fear in the citizens to get their way. Provide facts and details or lets just write it off as propaganda.

[hunter_jc]

Die Hard 4 comes alive!!!

Maybe Maggie Q is in this too. Well we can only dream.

[cyberbian]

Do the Google news search.

I thought the refusal to name names was suspicious and hinted at disinformation.

A Google news search makes this credible to me!

You cannot hide what is already public knowledge. It only leaves to speculation, how many players are active in this cyberwar. I make out at least two based on my presumption that all blackouts searched are player generated.

I speculate that where two are obvious, more are in play.